Coming Home to the Highlands, page 9
After the strange and surreal goings on of the morning, Olivia spent several hours wandering around the grounds of the castle while Marley napped on the stone steps. She was familiarising herself once again with her childhood home; chasing memories of games of badminton in the garden with Brodie in the roasting summer sunshine, picnics lovingly prepared for them by Mirren, and hide and seek with the gardeners during their lunch break. Helping to plant the oak trees on the driveway to replace the ones felled in a bad storm. Building snowmen and raiding her father’s wardrobe for tartan caps and scarves; they really were the best-dressed snow people in Inverness-shire, that one thing was certain.
So many memories could be called to mind of happy times in the castle, but the death of her father stood out as one of the most painful until now. She had not long since graduated from university and was home with her family for some quality time before she went travelling. His death had happened suddenly, with no prior indication or warning that he was sick, just like her mother’s. The memory of her mother’s pained cries when she found him on their bedroom floor created that same ache in her chest again that she had felt when the news of her mother’s death had sunk in. She paused and closed her eyes, trying to conjure up something happy again to replace the awful memories assaulting her temporal lobe.
Using her phone, she snapped photos of the old structure of the castle and its grounds from many different angles, catching the way the sun’s rays highlighted the stone and the carvings thereon. Looking at the place through fresh eyes, she could see many of the flaws her mother had mentioned, and worry niggled at the back of her mind. Was she capable of dealing with that? Or should she walk away and let Innes take over?
As the sun began to set, Marley rejoined her and she caught sight of the deer making their first appearance of the evening off in the distance by a copse of pine trees. She remembered how Kerr had always called them stupid animals when they were younger. He said they should go back to hunting them for trophies, return to the sport of their ancestors like real men. Real men indeed. This was the man who at nineteen almost fainted when he’d got a splinter in his pinkie finger at Christmas after deciding to chop some wood for the fire. Of course, Dougie had already chopped plenty, but Kerr was determined to display his bravado. Oh, yes, she could imagine it now if he had inherited the castle, weekend shooting trips at his snazzy hotel and spa so long as he didn’t have to actually do anything with, or go near, the carcases. A shiver traversed her spine at the horrific thought.
Kerr didn’t see the point of deer except as yet another cash cow, whereas Olivia could appreciate their gentle beauty. She had been fascinated by the does’ protective nature over their young and how they kept watch and were on high alert for predators. Not that there were any here these days; her parents had made sure of that. The grounds of Drumblair were more like a sanctuary these days. At least if she took on the role her mother had bequeathed to her, she could rest easy knowing the deer wouldn’t become prey for her brother and his idiotic Neanderthal cronies.
By the time the sun set, Olivia and Marley returned indoors and were greeted by a delicious aroma of home cooking.
As she entered the kitchen, Mirren looked up from the pot she was stirring. ‘Ah, there you are. I was about to send a search party.’ Her smile was quickly replaced with a look of concern. ‘Is everything okay?’
Olivia pulled out a chair and sat at the old kitchen table as Marley took his favourite spot by the fireplace. ‘I presume you know about the inheritance by now.’
Mirren wiped her hands on a pristine cloth and walked over to sit beside her. She took her hand. ‘Aye, I do, dearie. How do you feel about it all?’
Olivia shook her head. ‘Honestly? Numb. It was a huge shock. I just presumed that Kerr would inherit, and I would carry on as normal but now…’
After a pause, Mirren said, ‘You do know you can say no, don’t you? No one can force you into leaving your life in New York behind. No one would want you to be unhappy.’
Olivia appreciated her concern. ‘I know. But I don’t think I can turn my back on the place with such a risk to the future of Drumblair. I just don’t know if I’m capable of taking on such a huge task. I’m a clothing designer. I’ve never even contemplated running a normal house, let alone a castle. This is more Kerr’s thing. Well, maybe not as it stands, but I’m pretty sure he’d love the opportunity to get his hands on the place.’ She rubbed her hands over her face, suddenly feeling drained.
Mirren squeezed her arm. ‘You’re right about Kerr but wrong to doubt yourself, you know. Your mother and father knew how strong you were when you left the UK. You have always stood on your own two feet and that’s much more than can be said for your brother.’
‘Speaking of which, where is he?’
Mirren gave a deep huff of a sigh. ‘Oh, he left earlier. Made a big fuss so we all knew it too. Exaggerated the fact that he was going back to the only home he had ever known, the villa.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He’s so very bitter. And if I may be so bold, I want to warn you to be careful of him, Olivia dear. Spite was oozing from every pore of him earlier. I just worry about what he’s capable of. Promise me you’ll watch yourself.’
‘I will. But he’s my brother.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m sure he loves me really, even if he never shows it. I don’t think he would do anything to really hurt me,’ she insisted but realised as she spoke that she wasn’t entirely confident in her own words.
Mirren stood and shared out the aromatic beef stew onto two plates and Marley was suddenly awake again and at Olivia’s side.
‘Are you okay to still eat in here with your old friend?’ Mirren asked with a smile.
Olivia scoffed. ‘Of course I am. I’m still me.’
Mirren shook her head. ‘You’re Lady Olivia now.’
That shiver of dread juddered down her spine again and she remembered Brodie calling her that earlier on in the day. ‘Don’t remind me. Poor Brodie…’ she whispered as she remembered her snippy reaction.
Mirren placed two plates of food on the table and took her seat again. ‘Aye, I hear he came to your rescue when Kerr kicked off about the will. Seems he’s learned some manners, eh? I remember how he used to be so mean to you when you were both wee.’
‘Hmm. I can’t believe I ever had a crush on him.’ She closed her eyes briefly as she realised she had said the words out loud. She glanced up at Mirren who simply smiled.
‘Don’t think we didn’t notice that, hen. Och, the way you used to follow that boy around. You had this starry-eyed expression.’ She shook her head. ‘Then he hit puberty and turned rotten for a while. Good thing he’s changed back.’
‘I suppose it is.’ She didn’t mention that she used to dream about marrying him in the chapel by the lake. And how they would live in her room at the castle. But then again, those dreams had started when she was ten.
‘Shame his wife didn’t follow him here, though. He must be awfy lonely.’
Olivia’s ears pricked up and her heart seemed to plummet to her shoes. ‘Brodie’s married?’
‘Aye, apparently so. Four years now.’
Olivia wondered why this fact saddened her a little but pushed the thought aside and tucked into the mouth-watering food on her plate, closely observed by a drooling canine.
7
Olivia awoke to the sound of her phone ringing. She reached over to where it was charging and saw Harper’s face smiling from the screen. She realised that with everything that had happened, she hadn’t even contacted her best friend to tell her the news. It was only 7 a.m. now, so in New York it was 2 a.m. After a long flight, Harper must have arrived back at their apartment.
‘Hey! Are you home?’ Olivia asked as she pushed herself up to a sitting position and rubbed her eyes.
‘Yeah, but only just. It’s been a nightmare, there were delays so… Anyways, how did the will reading go? Are you okay? Has Kerr started to knock down walls already?’
Olivia pinched the bridge of her nose; her eyes ached through a lack of quality sleep. She stifled a yawn. ‘Erm… no… it didn’t go quite as I expected.’
‘Really? How so?’ Concern laced Harper’s voice. ‘Are you okay? Should I come back over? Because I can do that if you need—’
‘N-no, no, I’m fine, honestly. It’s just that… Kerr didn’t actually inherit the castle after all that drama.’
There was a long pause and Olivia could almost hear the cogs of Harper’s mind whirring. ‘You did, didn’t you? Oh my god, tell me you inherited it!’
Olivia inhaled a deep, shaking breath. ‘I did. It’s crazy, Harper, but I’m now the owner of Drumblair Castle. Me… I’m officially Lady Olivia.’ Saying the words out loud made Olivia a little lightheaded. The name sounded strange coming from her mouth, alien somehow. ‘Well, I will be once the large estate confirmation comes through.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s like probate but the Scottish version. It takes around six months, apparently.’
‘Oh, my word. So, you’re Lady MacBain now, huh?’
‘Not to you I’m not. And not to anyone else either if I have any say in the matter. Plain old Olivia is just fine.’
Harper’s voice softened. ‘But you’ve never been plain old Olivia, honey, only to yourself.’ Her excitement quickly ramped up. ‘But this is huge! What are you going to do? Shit, does this mean you won’t be coming home to New York?’
Olivia gave a deep sigh. ‘I honestly have no idea which way is up right now. I have a lot of thinking to do but… the hardest part is that Mum asked a huge thing of me and I don’t know if I can do it.’
‘Oh… what did she ask? Can you tell me? I totally understand if you can’t.’
‘No… no, it’s fine, I can tell you. Maybe you can help me decide what the heck to do.’
After explaining the conditions of the will to her best friend, Olivia fell silent for a moment to let her news sink in.
Harper hummed and hawed but eventually said, ‘When all’s said and done, you have to do what makes you happy, Olivia. And if bringing that beautiful old castle back to life is what will do that, then I support you 100 per cent, even if it means I don’t get to see you that often. There’s Zoom and FaceTime and email and phone calls. You have to do what you want to do. I don’t think I can really help because when you think about it, no one can make this decision for you. And you can’t make this decision for anyone but yourself.’
There were so many things to do. So many decisions to make, yet Olivia found herself frozen in some kind of overwhelmed state where thinking straight was just not an option. Once again, she wrapped herself up and headed out into the grounds with Marley. She took her sketch pad in case the surroundings triggered design ideas, and walked along the line of oak trees that she had helped to plant twenty-two years earlier. Now they towered over her at around twenty-five feet tall and fresh green growth was visible on the branches, more signs of spring. As Marley snuffled around on the hunt for goodness knew what, Olivia lowered herself to the ground and flipped over her sketch pad. She heard a rustling and turned to see a young red squirrel dashing up the trunk of one of her trees as Marley sat with his head cocked, watching intently. The squirrel’s little ears were tufty and its bushy tail, as long as its body, bobbed behind it as it scuttled. The russet colour of its fur brought to mind autumn leaves and suddenly a design based on the rough bark of the tree trunks and the red of the little creature came to mind and she sketched it out, making notes around it of colours, textures and fabrics.
Once she was done with the rough design, she held it aloft and smiled, more than happy with the result. The squirrel was now far out of reach, much to Marley’s yips of disapproval, but Olivia could just about make it out. She held up the design and said, ‘Thanks for the idea, little guy!’ The animal remained statue-still, watching them from its safe spot. It was good to know the place still inspired her. And the trees still held a special draw for her; a sentimental one. She could remember the planting day like it happened yesterday; her father, with his pristine white shirt, returning from some important meeting, had asked his driver to stop on the long driveway. He had climbed out of the car, rolled up his sleeves to the elbows, grabbed a shovel and said, ‘Right, my little Lolly, what are we up to?’ He was the only one who had ever called her Lolly and it was special for that fact. Like a gift he had given her.
‘We’re planting hoke trees, Daddy!’ she had told him with her typical six-year-old bouncy exuberance. ‘Look!’ She had held out a handful of acorns. ‘They started like this and growed into these!’ She lifted up one of the little saplings.
‘That’s wonderful! I do love oak trees, how fantastic! Can I help you to dig?’ he had asked with a bright smile.
‘You can!’ She held the shovel just below his hands and he let her think she was doing all the hard work but, of course, she wasn’t.
One of the things she had loved more than anything as a child was doing things with her dad. They had often gone fishing together at the lake, his huge hands guiding her tiny ones when they cast their lines. But they had always placed the caught fish back in the water in case they missed their own daddies and mummies. They would often go for long walks around the grounds where her father would point out his favourite places that he’d loved as a boy, the best den-making areas and his favourite treehouse that stood in ruins but that he always said they should rebuild. Sadly, they had never got around to it. He would talk and Olivia would listen in awe and wonder. She was most definitely a daddy’s girl.
She remembered placing the little saplings in the ground and patting the soil around them under her father and Dougie’s watchful eye. Another memory appeared; seven-year-old Brodie had been there, too, helping her to carry the next sapling to its new home. They had made up a little song to encourage the oaks to grow big and strong and had giggled as they danced around the newly planted trees holding hands, much to the amusement of their respective fathers. She had always loved to see her dad smile. Brodie was much sweeter when he was younger; for her birthday after the tree planting, he had given her a little silver acorn pendant on a chain. It was so beautiful and very grown up. She had treasured it for many years until it was lost, and she was heartbroken. That was all before he got in with the crowd of boys who were mean to most people, including adults. But back then, when they were little, Brodie had treated her like a friend. Strange how she remembered things in fragments, almost like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
‘We did well, didn’t we?’ a familiar voice asked from behind her. She turned to find Brodie standing there, his clothes covered in dirt and grass stains once again. Marley rushed to greet him and jumped up to add muddy paw prints to his already filthy attire. Brodie scratched the dog behind his ears.
Olivia stood and brushed leaves from her jeans. ‘We did. It’s hard to believe it was over twenty years ago.’
‘Aye. They’ve grown a bit bigger than average for their age. Must have been our childish enthusiasm, or maybe it was the dancing and the wee song we sang to them.’ He chuckled at the thought.
Olivia felt heat rise in her face and she laughed. ‘Oh, gosh, yes, I was just thinking about that. I’d forgotten all about it until a few minutes ago. Both our dads were in hysterics.’
‘Aye. Happy times.’ He paused for a moment before narrowing his eyes. ‘Do you still have the pendant I gave you? I remember shopping with my mum for your birthday gift and seeing it in the jeweller’s window. It felt like kismet. I had to get it for you.’
Olivia chewed her lip. ‘I’m so sorry, Brodie, but I lost it years ago. I loved it so much too. It was my very first piece of proper jewellery and I didn’t take it off. I think I might have lost it at the swimming pool. I was devastated.’
‘Ah, that’s a shame. See, I did used to be nice. But it’s strange how we tend to remember the bad stuff people have done first, eh?’
She returned his suspicious gaze. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He took a step closer. ‘I was mean to you back then, wasn’t I? Well, when we were a bit older, I was, I see that now. Hadn’t really thought about it until the other day when you made some comment about me saying hurtful things. I know I was a little rat bag when I was a teenager.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Always trying to look cool with ma mates. But I didn’t mean any of it. Not really. I was just a kid.’ He shrugged. ‘But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for hurting your feelings.’
Guilt washed over her. She really had remembered the bad stuff he’d done to her as a teen when they had actually been good friends as younger children. But twenty years had passed. They were adults. He was married, for goodness’ sake; you couldn’t get much more grown-up than that.
She smiled and shook her head. ‘I think my emotions have just been raw since I got home. I’ve taken everything to heart. But it was such a long time ago now, I think I can forgive you.’
He grinned and held out his hand. ‘Friends?’
She took his dirt-covered offering and for a split second had the urge to tug him into that dance around the tree for old time’s sake and a giggle, but instead simply nodded. ‘Friends.’
‘Fancy a coffee?’ He gestured behind himself. ‘I’ve a flask over by the wheelbarrow. I’ve even got some of Mirren’s Dundee cake too if you fancy.’
Olivia’s stomach gurgled at the thought of Mirren’s best cake recipe, filled with succulent fruit and crunchy almonds, and she nodded enthusiastically. They walked back to where Brodie had left the wheelbarrow and sat on a couple of old stumps as Brodie poured coffee into the two small cups that came with the flask and Marley went back to foraging in the undergrowth. Brodie handed a cup to Olivia, followed by a chunk of fruit cake wrapped in a paper napkin.
